L<SUP><SMALL>A</SMALL></SUP>T<SMALL>E</SMALL>X2<SUB>e</SUB>---The new L<SUP><SMALL>A</SMALL></SUP>T<SMALL>E</SMALL>X~release</A>
</H2>
The previous version of L<SUP><SMALL>A</SMALL></SUP>T<SMALL>E</SMALL>X<#13#><#13#> was known as L<SUP><SMALL>A</SMALL></SUP>T<SMALL>E</SMALL>X~2.09. Over the
years many extensions have been developed for L<SUP><SMALL>A</SMALL></SUP>T<SMALL>E</SMALL>X. This is, of
course, a sure sign of its continuing popularity but it has had one
unfortunate result: incompatible L<SUP><SMALL>A</SMALL></SUP>T<SMALL>E</SMALL>X<#14#><#14#> formats came into use at
different sites. This included `standard L<SUP><SMALL>A</SMALL></SUP>T<SMALL>E</SMALL>X~2.09', L<SUP><SMALL>A</SMALL></SUP>T<SMALL>E</SMALL>X<#15#><#15#> built
with the <I>New Font Selection Scheme</I>~(), , ,
and so on. Thus, to process documents from various places, a site
maintainer was forced to keep multiple versions of the L<SUP><SMALL>A</SMALL></SUP>T<SMALL>E</SMALL>X<#17#><#17#>
program. In addition, when looking at a source file it was not always
clear for which format the document was written.
To put an end to this unsatisfactory situation, L<SUP><SMALL>A</SMALL></SUP>T<SMALL>E</SMALL>X2<SUB>e</SUB><#18#><#18#> has been
produced; it brings all such extensions back under a single format and
thus prevents the proliferation of mutually incompatible dialects of
L<SUP><SMALL>A</SMALL></SUP>T<SMALL>E</SMALL>X~2.09. With L<SUP><SMALL>A</SMALL></SUP>T<SMALL>E</SMALL>X2<SUB>e</SUB><#19#><#19#> the `new font selection scheme' is
standard and, for example, <I>amstex</I> (formerly the <#21#><#21#>
format) or <I>slides</I> (formerly the <#23#><#23#> format) are simply
extension packages, all working with the same base format.
The introduction of a new release also made it possible to add a small
number of often-requested features and to make the task of writing
